Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.
Indeed, taken out of context, my words could have meant a lot of things. The key word in his question is “parallel” because yesterday I was indeed drawing a parallel. From my experience working on domestic abuse cases, often in these situations friends of the guilty party tend to downplay the situation, saying that the victim asked for it. That is the parallel that sprang to mind when I heard colleagues saying that she should not have been there, she should not have been in the middle of the room, as if she were responsible for what happened to her. That was the parallel I was trying to make.
Likewise, when a child is bullied in the schoolyard, it is not right to ask what he did to provoke the bullying. The bully is responsible for what happened, not the person who was bullied or assaulted. That is the parallel I wanted to draw yesterday. I hope I answered my colleague's question.